Chapters 5 & 6

Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson

Chapter V: In the advocate's house

The next day, Sabbath, August 27th, I had the occasion I had long
looked forward to, to hear some of the famous
Edinburgh preachers, all
well known to me already by the report of Mr Campbell. Alas! and I might just
as well have been at Essendean, and sitting under Mr. Campbell's worthy self!
the turmoil of my thoughts, which dwelt continually on the interview with
Prestongrange, inhibiting me from all attention. I was indeed much less
impressed by the reasoning of the divines than by the spectacle of the thronged
congregation in the churches, like what I imagined of a theatre or (in my then
disposition) of an assize of trial; above all at the West Kirk, with its three
tiers of galleries, where I went in the vain hope that I might see Miss
Drummond.

On the Monday I betook me for the first time to a barber's, and was
very well pleased with the result. Thence to the Advocate's, where the red
coats of the soldiers showed again about his door, making a bright place in the
close. I looked about for the young lady and her gillies: there was never a
sign of them. But I was no sooner shown into the cabinet or antechamber where I
had spent so wearyful a time upon the Saturday, than I was aware of the tall
figure of James More in a corner. He seemed a prey to a painful uneasiness,
reaching forth his feet and hands, and his eyes speeding here and there without
rest about the walls of the small chamber, which recalled to me with a sense of
pity the man's wretched situation. I suppose it was partly this, and partly my
strong continuing interest in his daughter, that moved me to accost him.

"Give you a good-morning, sir," said I.

"And a good-morning to you, sir," said he.

"You bide tryst with Prestongrange?" I asked.

"I do, sir, and I pray your business with that gentleman be more
agreeable than mine," was his reply.

"I hope at least that yours will be brief, for I suppose you pass
before me," said I.

"All pass before me," he said, with a shrug and a gesture upward of
the open hands. "It was not always so, sir, but times change. It was not so
when the sword was in the scale, young gentleman, and the virtues of the
soldier might sustain themselves."

There came a kind of Highland snuffle out of the man that raised my
dander strangely.

"Well, Mr. Macgregor," said I, "I understand the main thing for a
soldier is to be silent, and the first of his virtues never to complain."

"You have my name, I perceive" - he bowed to me with his arms
crossed - "though it's one I must not use myself. Well, there is a publicity -
I have shown my face and told my name too often in the beards of my enemies. I
must not wonder if both should be known to many that I know not."

"That you know not in the least, sir," said I, "nor yet anybody
else; but the name I am called, if you care to hear it, is Balfour."

"It is a good name," he replied, civilly; "there are many decent
folk that use it. And now that I call to mind, there was a young gentleman,
your namesake, that marched surgeon in the year '45 with my battalion."

"I believe that would be a brother to Balfour of Baith," said I,
for I was ready for the surgeon now.

"The same, sir," said James More. "And since I have been
fellow-soldier with your kinsman, you must suffer me to grasp your hand."

He shook hands with me long and tenderly, beaming on me the while
as though he had found a brother.

"Ah!" says he, "these are changed days since your cousin and I
heard the balls whistle in our lugs."

"I think he was a very far-away cousin," said I, drily, "and I
ought to tell you that I never clapped eyes upon the man."

"Well, well," said he, "it makes no change. And you - I do not
think you were out yourself, sir - I have no clear mind of your face, which is
one not probable to be forgotten."

"In the year you refer to, Mr. Macgregor, I was getting skelped in
the parish school," said I.

"So young!" cries he. "Ah, then, you will never be able to think
what this meeting is to me. In the hour of my adversity, and here in the house
of my enemy, to meet in with the blood of an old brother-in-arms - it heartens
me, Mr. Balfour, like the skirting of the highland pipes! Sir, this is a sad
look back that many of us have to make: some with falling tears. I have lived
in my own country like a king; my sword, my mountains, and the faith of my
friends and kinsmen sufficed for me. Now I lie in a stinking dungeon; and do
you know, Mr. Balfour," he went on, taking my arm and beginning to lead me
about, "do you know, sir, that I lack mere necessaries? The malice of my foes
has quite sequestered my resources. I lie, as you know, sir, on a trumped-up
charge, of which I am as innocent as yourself. They dare not bring me to my
trial, and in the meanwhile I am held naked in my prison. I could have wished
it was your cousin I had met, or his brother Baith himself. Either would, I
know, have been rejoiced to help me; while a comparative stranger like yourself
- "

I would be ashamed to set down all he poured out to me in this
beggarly vein, or the very short and grudging answers that I made to him. There
were times when I was tempted to stop his mouth with some small change; but
whether it was from shame or pride - whether it was for my own sake or
Catriona's - whether it was because I thought him no fit father for his
daughter, or because I resented that grossness of immediate falsity that clung
about the man himself - the thing was clean beyond me. And I was still being
wheedled and preached to, and still being marched to and fro, three steps and a
turn, in that small chamber, and had already, by some very short replies,
highly incensed, although not finally discouraged, my beggar, when
Prestongrange appeared in the doorway and bade me eagerly into his big chamber.

"I have a moment's engagements," said he; "and that you may not sit
empty-handed I am going to present you to my three braw daughters, of whom
perhaps you may have heard, for I think they are more famous than papa. This
way."

He led me into another long room above, where a dry old lady sat at
a frame of embroidery, and the three handsomest young women (I suppose) in
Scotland stood together by a window.

"This is my new friend, Mr Balfour," said he, presenting me by the
arm, "David, here is my sister, Miss Grant, who is so good as keep my house for
me, and will be very pleased if she can help you. And here," says he, turning
to the three younger ladies, "here are my three braw
dauchters. A fair question to ye, Mr. Davie: which of the three is the
best favoured? And I wager he will never have the impudence to propound honest
Alan Ramsay's answer!"

Hereupon all three, and the old Miss Grant as well, cried out
against this sally, which (as I was acquainted with the verses he referred to)
brought shame into my own check. It seemed to me a citation unpardonable in a
father, and I was amazed that these ladies could laugh even while they
reproved, or made believe to.

Under cover of this mirth, Prestongrange got forth of the chamber,
and I was left, like a fish upon dry land, in that very unsuitable society. I
could never deny, in looking back upon what followed, that I was eminently
stockish; and I must say the ladies were well drilled to have so long a
patience with me. The aunt indeed sat close at her embroidery, only looking now
and again and smiling; but the misses, and especially the eldest, who was
besides the most handsome, paid me a score of attentions which I was very ill
able to repay. It was all in vain to tell myself I was a young follow of some
worth as well as a good estate, and had no call to feel abashed before these
lasses, the eldest not so much older than myself, and no one of them by any
probability half as learned. Reasoning would not change the fact; and there
were times when the colour came into my face to think I was shaved that day for
the first time.

The talk going, with all their endeavours, very heavily, the eldest
took pity on my awkwardness, sat down to her instrument, of which she was a
passed mistress, and entertained me for a while with playing and singing, both
in the Scots and in the Italian manners; this put me more at my ease, and being
reminded of Alan's air that he had taught me in the hole near Carriden, I made
so bold as to whistle a bar or two, and ask if she knew that.

She shook her head. "I never heard a note of it," said she.
"Whistle it all through. And now once again," she added, after I had done so.

Then she picked it out upon the keyboard, and (to my surprise)
instantly enriched the same with well-sounding chords, and sang, as she played,
with a very droll expression and broad accent -

"Haenae I got just the lilt of it? Isnae this the tune that ye
whustled?"

"You see," she says, "I can do the poetry too, only it won't rhyme.
And then again:

She looked at me directly in the face. "I shall call it
David's air," said she; "though if it's the least
like what your namesake of Israel played to Saul I would never wonder that the
king got little good by it, for it's but melancholy music. Your other name I do
not like; so if you was ever wishing to hear your tune again you are to ask for
it by mine."

This was said with a significance that gave my heart a jog. "Why
that, Miss Grant?" I asked.

"Why," says she, "if ever you should come to get hanged, I will set
your last dying speech and confession to that tune and sing it."

This put it beyond a doubt that she was partly informed of my story
and peril. How, or just how much, it was more difficult to guess. It was plain
she knew there was something of danger in the name of Alan, and thus warned me
to leave it out of reference; and plain she knew that I stood under some
criminal suspicion. I judged besides that the harshness of her last speech
(which besides she had followed up immediately with a very noisy piece of
music) was to put an
end to the present conversation. I stood beside her, affecting to listen and
admire, but truly whirled away by my own thoughts. I have always found this
young lady to be a lover of the mysterious; and certainly this first interview
made a mystery that was beyond my plummet. One thing I learned long after, the
hours of the Sunday had been well employed, the bank porter had been found and
examined, my visit to Charles Stewart was discovered, and the deduction made
that I was pretty deep with James and Alan, and most likely in a continued
correspondence with the last. Hence this broad hint that was given me across
the harpsichord.

In the midst of the piece of music, one of the younger misses, who
was at a window over the close, cried on her sisters to come quick, for there
was "Grey eyes again." The whole family trooped
there at once, and crowded one another for a look. The window whither they ran
was in an odd corner of that room, gave above the entrance door, and flanked up
the close.

"Come, Mr. Balfour," they cried, "come and see. She is the most
beautiful creature! She hangs round the close-head these last days, always with
some wretched-like gillies, and yet seems quite a lady."

I had no need to look; neither did I look twice, or long. I was
afraid she might have seen me there, looking down upon her from that chamber of
music, and she without, and her father in the same house, perhaps begging for
his life with tears, and myself come but newly from rejecting his petitions.
But even that glance set me in a better conceit of myself and much less awe of
the young ladies. They were beautiful, that was beyond question, but Catriona
was beautiful too, and had a kind of brightness in her like a coal of fire. As
much as the others cast me down, she lifted me up. I remembered I had talked
easily with her. If I could make no hand of it with these fine maids, it was
perhaps something their own fault. My embarrassment began to be a little
mingled and lightened with a sense of fun; and when the aunt smiled at me from
her embroidery, and the three daughters unbent to me like a baby, all with
"papa's orders" written on their faces, there were times when I could have
found it in my heart to smile myself.

"Now, girls," said he, "I must take Mr. Balfour away again; but I
hope you have been able to persuade him to return where I shall be always
gratified to find him."

So they each made me a little farthing compliment, and I was led
away.

If this visit to the family had been meant to soften my resistance,
it was the worst of failures. I was no such ass but what I understood how poor
a figure I had made, and that the girls would be yawning their jaws off as soon
as my stiff back was turned. I felt I had shown how little I had in me of what
was soft and graceful; and I longed for a chance to prove that I had something
of the other stuff, the stern and dangerous.

Well, I was to be served to my desire, for the scene to which he
was conducting me was of a different character.

Chapter VI: Umquile the Master of Lovat

There was a man waiting us in Prestongrange's study, whom I
distasted at the first look, as we distaste a ferret or an earwig. He was
bitter ugly, but seemed very much of a gentleman; had still manners, but
capable of sudden leaps and violences; and a small voice, which could ring out
shrill and dangerous when he so desired.

The Advocate presented us in a familiar, friendly way.

"Here, Fraser," said he, "here is Mr. Balfour whom we talked about.
Mr. David, this is Mr. Simon Fraser, whom we used to call by another title, but
that is an old song. Mr. Fraser has an errand to you."

With that he stepped aside to his book-shelves, and made believe to
consult a quarto volume in the far end.

I was thus left (in a sense) alone with perhaps the last person in
the world I had expected. There was no doubt upon the terms of introduction;
this could be no other than the forfeited Master of Lovat and chief of the
great clan Fraser. I knew he had led his men in the Rebellion; I knew his
father's head - my old lord's, that grey fox of the mountains - to have fallen
on the block for that offence, the lands of the family to have been seized, and
their nobility attainted. I could not conceive what he should be doing in
Grant's house; I could not conceive that he had been called to the bar, had
eaten all his principles, and was now currying favour with the Government even
to the extent of acting Advocate-Depute in the Appin murder.

"Well, Mr. Balfour," said he, "what is all this I hear of ye?"

"It would not become me to prejudge," said I, "but if the Advocate
was your authority he is fully possessed of my opinions."

"I may tell you I am engaged in the Appin case," he went on; "I am
to appear under Prestongrange; and from my study of the precognitions I can
assure you your opinions are erroneous. The guilt of Breck is manifest; and
your testimony, in which you admit you saw him on the hill at the very moment,
will certify his hanging."

"It will be rather ill to hang him till you catch him," I observed.
"And for other matters I very willingly leave you to your own impressions."

"The Duke has been informed," he went on. "I have just come from
his Grace, and he expressed himself before me with an honest freedom like the
great nobleman he is. He spoke of you by name, Mr. Balfour, and declared his
gratitude beforehand in case you would be led by those who understand your own
interests and those of the country so much better than yourself. Gratitude is
no empty expression in that mouth: experto-crede. I
daresay you know something of my name and clan, and the damnable example and
lamented end of my late father, to say nothing of my own errata. Well, I have
made my peace with that good Duke; he has intervened for me with our friend
Prestongrange; and here I am with my foot in the stirrup again and some of the
responsibility shared into my hand of prosecuting King George's enemies and
avenging the late daring and barefaced insult to his Majesty."

"Doubtless a proud position for your father's son," says I.

He wagged his bald eyebrows at me. "You are pleased to make
experiments in the ironical, I think," said he. "But I am here upon duty, I am
here to discharge my errand in good faith, it is in vain you think to divert
me. And let me tell you, for a young fellow of spirit and ambition like
yourself, a good shove in the beginning will do more than ten years' drudgery.
The shove is now at your command; choose what you will to be advanced in, the
Duke will watch upon you with the affectionate disposition of a father."

"I am thinking that I lack the docility of the son," says I.

"And do you really suppose, sir, that the whole policy of this
country is to be suffered to trip up and tumble down for an ill-mannered colt
of a boy?" he cried. "This has been made a test case, all who would prosper in
the future must put a shoulder to the wheel. Look at me! Do you suppose it is
for my pleasure that I put myself in the highly invidious position of
persecuting a man that I have drawn the sword alongside of? The choice is not
left me."

"But I think, sir, that you forfeited your choice when you mixed in
with that unnatural rebellion," I remarked. "My case is happily otherwise; I am
a true man, and can look either the Duke or
King George in the face
without concern."

"Is it so the wind sits?" says he. "I protest you are fallen in the
worst sort of error. Prestongrange has been hitherto so civil (he tells me) as
not to combat your allegations; but you must not think they are not looked upon
with strong suspicion. You say you are innocent. My dear sir, the facts declare
you guilty."

"I was waiting for you there," said I.

"The evidence of Mungo Campbell; your flight after the completion
of the murder; your long course of secresy - my good young man!" said Mr.
Simon, "here is enough evidence to hang a bullock, let be a David Balfour! I
shall be upon that trial; my voice shall be raised; I shall then speak much
otherwise from what I do to-day, and far less to your gratification, little as
you like it now! Ah, you look white!" cries he. "I have found the key of your
impudent heart. You look pale, your eyes waver, Mr. David! You see the grave
and the gallows nearer by than you had fancied."

"I own to a natural weakness," said I. "I think no shame for that.
Shame. . ." I was going on.

"Shame waits for you on the gibbet," he broke in.

"Where I shall but be even'd with my lord your father," said I.

"Aha, but not so!" he cried, "and you do not yet see to the bottom
of this business. My father suffered in a great cause, and for dealing in the
affairs of kings. You are to hang for a dirty murder about boddle-pieces. Your
personal part in it, the treacherous one of holding the poor wretch in talk,
your accomplices a pack of ragged Highland gillies. And it can be shown, my
great Mr. Balfour - it can be shown, and it will be
shown, trust me that has a finger in the pie - it can be shown, and shall be
shown, that you were paid to do it. I think I can see the looks go round the
court when I adduce my evidence, and it shall appear that you, a young man of
education, let yourself be corrupted to this shocking act for a suit of cast
clothes, a bottle of Highland spirits, and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in
copper money."

There was a touch of the truth in these words that knocked me like
a blow: clothes, a bottle of usquebaugh, and
three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in change made up, indeed, the most of what Alan
and I had carried from Auchurn; and I saw that some of James's people had been
blabbing in their dungeons.

"You see I know more than you fancied," he resumed in triumph. "And
as for giving it this turn, great Mr. David, you must not suppose the
Government of Great Britain and Ireland will ever be stuck for want of
evidence. We have men here in prison who will swear out their lives as we
direct them; as I direct, if you prefer the phrase. So now you are to guess
your part of glory if you choose to die. On the one hand, life, wine, women,
and a duke to be your handgun: on the other, a rope to your craig, and a gibbet
to clatter your bones on, and the lousiest, lowest story to hand down to your
namesakes in the future that was ever told about a hired assassin. And see
here!" he cried, with a formidable shrill voice, "see this paper that I pull
out of my pocket. Look at the name there: it is the name of the great David, I
believe, the ink scarce dry yet. Can you guess its nature? It is the warrant
for your arrest, which I have but to touch this bell beside me to have executed
on the spot. Once in the Tolbooth upon this paper, may God help you, for the
die is cast!"

I must never deny that I was greatly horrified by so much baseness,
and much unmanned by the immediacy and ugliness of my danger. Mr. Simon had
already gloried in the changes of my hue; I make no doubt I was now no ruddier
than my shirt; my speech besides trembled.

"There is a gentleman in this room," cried I. "I appeal to him. I
put my life and credit in his hands."

Prestongrange shut his book with a snap. "I told you so, Simon,"
said he; "you have played your hand for all it was worth, and you have lost.
Mr. David," he went on, "I wish you to believe it was by no choice of mine you
were subjected to this proof. I wish you could understand how glad I am you
should come forth from it with so much credit. You may not quite see how, but
it is a little of a service to myself. For had our friend here been more
successful than I was last night, it might have appeared that he was a better
judge of men than I; it might have appeared we were altogether in the wrong
situations, Mr. Simon and myself. And I know our friend Simon to be ambitious,"
says he, striking lightly on Fraser's shoulder. "As for this stage play, it is
over; my sentiments are very much engaged in your behalf; and whatever issue we
can find to this unfortunate affair, I shall make it my business to see it is
adopted with tenderness to you."

These were very good words, and I could see besides that there was
little love, and perhaps a spice of genuine ill-will, between these two who
were opposed to me. For all that, it was unmistakable this interview had been
designed, perhaps rehearsed, with the consent of both; it was plain my
adversaries were in earnest to try me by all methods; and now (persuasion,
flattery, and menaces having been tried in vain) I could not but wonder what
would be their next expedient. My eyes besides were still troubled, and my
knees loose under me, with the distress of the late ordeal; and I could do no
more than stammer the same form of words: "I put my life and credit in your
hands."

"Well, well," said he, "we must try to save them. And in the
meanwhile let us return to gentler methods. You must not bear any grudge upon
my friend, Mr. Simon, who did but speak by his brief. And even if you did
conceive some malice against myself, who stood by and seemed rather to hold a
candle, I must not let that extend to innocent members of my family. These are
greatly engaged to see more of you, and I cannot consent to have my young
womenfolk disappointed. To-morrow they will be going to Hope Park, where I
think it very proper you should make your bow. Call for me first, when I may
possibly have something for your private hearing; then you shall be turned
abroad again under the conduct of my misses; and until that time repeat to me
your promise of secrecy."

I had done better to have instantly refused, but in truth I was
beside the power of reasoning; did as I was bid; took my leave I know not how;
and when I was forth again in the close, and the door had shut behind me, was
glad to lean on a house wall and wipe my face. That horrid apparition (as I may
call it) of Mr. Simon rang in my memory, as a sudden noise rings after it is
over in the ear. Tales of the man's father, of his falseness, of his manifold
perpetual treacheries, rose before me from all that I had heard and read, and
joined on with what I had just experienced of himself. Each time it occurred to
me, the ingenious foulness of that calumny he had proposed to nail upon my
character startled me afresh. The case of the man upon the gibbet by Leith Walk
appeared scarce distinguishable from that I was now to consider as my own. To
rob a child of so little more than nothing was certainly a paltry enterprise
for two grown men; but my own tale, as it was to be represented in a court by
Simon Fraser, appeared a fair second in every possible point of view of
sordidness and cowardice.

The voices of two of Prestongrange's liveried men upon his doorstep
recalled me to myself.

"Ha'e," said the one, "this billet as fast as ye can link to the
captain."

"Is that for the cateran back again?" asked the other.

"It would seem sae," returned the first. "Him and Simon are seeking
him."

"I think Prestongrange is gane gyte," says the second. "He'll have
James More in bed with him next."

"Weel, it's neither your affair nor mine's," said the first.

And they parted, the one upon his errand, and the other back into
the house.

This looked as ill as possible. I was scarce gone and they were
sending already for James More, to whom I thought Mr. Simon must have pointed
when he spoke of men in prison and ready to redeem their lives by all
extremities. My scalp curdled among my hair, and the next moment the blood
leaped in me to remember Catriona. Poor lass! her father stood to be hanged for
pretty indefensible misconduct. What was yet more unpalatable, it now seemed he
was prepared to save his four quarters by the worst of shame and the most foul
of cowardly murders - murder by the false oath; and to complete our
misfortunes, it seemed myself was picked out to be the victim.

I began to walk swiftly and at random, conscious only of a desire
for movement, air, and the open country.